Page 18 of The Nightmare King

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Mare. I really don’t.”

He extended a hand. “Come on.”

Taking his palm, I followed him to the adjacent tree, Brandon kicking and screaming behind us. There were hidden steps notched in the bark, and Mare held my hips, helping me find my footing before we climbed to the top.

“A treehouse?” I smiled, looking out over the dystopian landscape. “This is kind of nice, even though you’re a jerk.”

He pulled off his ski mask, leaving his jet-black hair ruffled and his jaw impossibly sharp. “Me, a jerk? You wound me. For I am freshly gutting a pig for all eternity for you as we speak. Don’t you hear his cries?”

I did hear Brandon’s cries, and I wondered if the zombies would, too. “You’re evil.”

“Quite.” With those full lips, so delicious, so inviting, he leaned forward in offering of tenderness and passion. An offering I’d taken time and time again and wanted again. I wanted him in the treehouse while zombies stalked my coworker… but instead, I forced myself to push him back.

“Where do you come from?” I asked. “Maybe if I can make sense of you, of this, I’ll know what to do next.”

Mare let out a small sigh, running his hand through his tousled hair. “I come from the same place as you.”

“How do I stay with you? If you can make Brandon stay, can’t you make me stay?”

My phantom leaned back, glancing down the tree trunk before fishing into his vest and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. “So many things that I’m not allowed to tell you, Lilac. This only works if you sort it out on your own. But at least you’re beginning to wake up to what’s truly happening here.” Taking a lighter to the tobacco between his lips, he puffed as the cigarette ignited. “Now, you answer me. Why do you accept a life of lies when you’re capable of swimming through the night stars for me?”

I knew what was coming next, felt it in the shift of the wind and the drop of his perfect expression. Crawling between his legs I cradled myself in his strong arms and held tight. “Stay,” I begged. Was I pleading with him or with myself? I couldn’t tell.

“Oh, Lilac…” He brushed his lips against my ear, making the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. I regretted asking questions instead of making out with him. “You still don’t realize it, do you?”

A gurgled scream quivered in the distance, mixing with wet moans and crunching sounds. Zombies had found Brandon, dangling like a chicken on a wire. Dread tightened my chest as he wailed, and the cries and grunts zeroed in at the bottom of our treetop escape.

“What don’t I realize?” I asked, watching Mare stand and pull his gun off his back. What terrors did I leave him to when I woke up? Did he ever get hurt? Why would he keep finding me each night if he knew it would always end in pain for him? “Does it hurt?” I asked, tears filling my eyes as he loaded his gun, pausing with his ski mask on his forehead.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Hurts like hell.” But his eyes weren’t looking at the zombies climbing our tree, they were fixed to me.

I repeated, fear and lucidity threatening to pull me from my sleepfulness. “What don’t I realize?”

Mare tugged his mask over his chin, a dark knight once more, and cocked his weapon. A zombie stabbed a knife into his boot, and he winced as I screamed in panic. Those sharp violet eyes found mine in quiet goodbye. “You don’t realize just how bad it’s about to get. How lost you’ll be if you don’t face what’s right in front of you.”

Something exploded in a bright wash of hot orange.

I opened my eyes in Brandon’s bed and rolled over, cold with sweat. Brandon’s mouth was open, so were his eyes… and blood pooled from his eyes and nose. He wasn’t breathing.

Brandon was dead.

Chapter

Eight

OH, NO

I don't paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.

Frida Kahlo

Sam clutched her hands together as if she were praying to the authorities. Bargaining for my freedom, explaining that I had nothing to do with the death of the very dead boy in the bed next to me. The officer said something into his walkie-talkie and glanced back at me as I sat on the stoop steps of Brandon’s house.

Wheels clicked beside me as they wheeled him down the stairs covered with a white sheet. The dark pavement turned neon blue and then red, blue and then red, with the siren lights as my coworker was loaded into an ambulance. I didn’t even remember what I’d said when I called my sister sobbing. She’d used my shared location to find me, pulling me sobbing out of the bedroom as she frantically made phone calls.

Neighbors stood on their porches, holding their robes together at their necks, watching me, watching the scene, piecing together the details beyond the newly rolled-out yellow tape.

This felt like a nightmare.

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